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The lowest possible temperature. By its definition in physics, temperature has the character of an average energy. For instance, the temperature of gas is proportional to the average kinetic energy of the moving molecules or atoms. In this case, absolute zero would be reached when the gas particles do not move at all.

On the usual temperature scales, absolute zero is at -459.67 degrees Fahrenheit or -273.15 degrees Celsius. By definition of the Kelvin scale, absolute zero is at zero Kelvin.

abundances of elements

What portion of atomic matter in the universe is made up of hydrogen atoms? What fraction takes the form of helium, and how abundant are the other chemical elements? Questions like these are interesting in the context of relativity theory because the relativistic big bang models predict how many nuclei of light elements (mainly deuterium, helium, lithium) should have formed in the early universe during the phase known as Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. A brief account of this phase can be found in the spotlight text Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, while Equilibrium and change provides more information about the physical processes involved.

Measuring the abundances for these elements and subtracting the estimate for how many such nuclei formed inside stars (stellar nucleosynthesis) makes for an important test of this prediction and thus of the big bang models themselves. More information is provided by the spotlight text Elements of the past.

acceleration

Every change of velocity with time is an acceleration.

This definition is slightly different from our everyday usage of the word. Ordinarily, we talk of an object accelerating when it becomes faster and faster. The physics definition covers two more situations. An object that decelerates, becomes slower, thus changes its velocity and, in the physics sense, undergoes a (negative) acceleration. Also, in physics, velocity is not the same as speed. A constant velocity implies not only constant speed, but also a constant direction of movement. Once the direction changes, so does the velocity - the change in velocity is associated with the change in the direction of movement. Thus, in the physics sense, even a car going around a curve of the road at constant speed undergoes acceleration.

accretion

When gas, dust or other kinds of matter fall towards a compact object (such as a black hole or a neutron star), a disk of infalling matter forms around the central object called the accretion disk.

The energy that matter gains in its fall is transformed into heat energy of the disk matter. Consequently, accretion disks are, as a rule, extremely hot. Their thermal radiation they emit is an important tool for indirect observation of neutron stars and black hole.

Within the disk, matter spirals around and around, coming closer and closer to the central object until at last it falls onto its surface (or, in the case of a black hole, through its event horizon).

action-at-a-distance

Forces acting from one location to another without the need for any
material connection, and without any delay - for instance, the
Newtonian gravitational force with which even distant bodies in empty space can exert influence on each other.

active galactic nuclei (AGN)

The innermost regions of young galaxies can become very active and radiate away considerable energy. Examples for such active galactic nuclei are radio galaxies and quasars.

In current models, the energy source behind such nuclei's activities is the supermassive black hole in the galactic centre.

age of the universe

Another word for cosmic time, the time coordinate of the big bang models:
time as measured by clocks that are at rest relative to the expanding
space, and that have been set to zero at the very beginning, the time
of the hypothetical big bang singularity.

One of the research institutes of the Max Planck Society; an international centre for research on Einstein's theory of gravity - from the mathematical fundamental, astrophysics and gravitational waves to quantum gravity. Founded in 1995, the institute is situated in Golm near Potsdam in Germany. In 2002, the experimental branch of the institute was opened in Hannover. It is dedicated to research with the gravitational wave detector GEO 600 .

Alternative expression for the naked (i.e. stripped of electrons) atomic nucleus of the element helium consisting of two protons and two neutrons.

amplitude

For a physical quantity that changes periodically, the maximal value reached in the course of one period. The simplest example is a sine oscillation as shown here:

Over time (plotted from left to right), the sine curve oscillates between its minimum and its maximum values.

Depending on the nature of the oscillation or wave, the amplitude will have different meanings. For a pendulum swinging back and forth, the amplitude is the maximum angle between the vertical direction and the pendulum string. For an electromagnetic wave, the amplitude is the maximal value of the electric field or equivalently (since the two maxima are related) the maximum of the magnetic field. For a (weak) gravitational wave, the amplitude is a direct measure of the changes in distance caused by the wave - as a simple gravitational wave of amplitude A passes, there are two directions in which distances are alternately stretched by up to a factor (1+A/2) and compressed by a factor (1-A/2).

The amplitude can change over time. For instance, for an ordinary pendulum, air friction will slow the pendulum bob down, and for each period - for each time the pendulum bob travels back and forth - the amplitude will be less than for the previous period. For a wave, the amplitude will also in general vary with location. Typically, the amplitude of a wave will decrease with the distance from the wave's source.

angular momentum

A conserved physical quantity associated with the rotation of an object.

In classical physics, the contribution of each part of a body to the body's total angular momentum is the part's mass times its distance from the axis of rotation times the part's velocity due to the rotation.

As a general rule, theories uniting special relativity and quantum theory
predict the existence of a species of anti-particle for every species of particle.
For instance, if such a theory contains electrons, then it also contains their anti-particles, called positrons, for protons, there are anti-protons, and so on.

It is a universal feature of anti-particles that they have the
same mass as corresponding particles,
and equal, but opposite charges;
for examples, electrons and positrons have the same mass, but the electrons carry
negative electric charge, whereas positrons carry the exact same amount of positive
electric charge. For particles that carry no charges of any kind, particles and
anti-particles are identical.

Synonyms: minute of arc, second of arc. Subdivisions of an angle,
analogous to subdivisions of time: Sixty arcseconds correspond to one
arcminute; sixty arcminutes (or 3600 arcseconds) correspond to one
degree. A right angle has 90 degrees, or 5400 arcminutes, or 324000
arcseconds.

To denote fractions of these units, a prefix is added in the usual way - for instance, one thousandth of a second of arc is a millisecond of arc.

astronomical unit

Unit of length used by astronomers for distances in and around the solar system; the average distance frm the earth to the sun. Abbreviation: AU.

All matter we encounter in everyday life consists of smallest units
called atoms - the air we breath consists of a wildly careening crowd
of little groups of atoms, my computer's keyboard of a tangle of
atom chains, the metal surface it rests on is a crystal lattice of
atoms. All the variety of matter consists of less than hundred species of
atoms (in other words: less than a hundred different chemical elements).

Every atom consists of an nucleus
surrounded by a cloud of electrons.
Nearly all of the atom's mass is
concentrated in its nucleus, while the structure of the electron cloud determines how
the atom can bind to other atoms (in other words: its chemical properties).
Every chemical element can be defined via a characteristic number of
protons in its nucleus.
Atoms that have lost some of their usual number of electrons
are called ions.
Atoms are extremely small (typical diameters are in the region of
tenths of a billionth of a metre = 10-10 metres), and to describe their properties and behaviour, one has
to resort to quantum theory.